HTML Entities and Symbols

What Is It?

A character reference lets you write a symbol that might otherwise be read as HTML code.

What the Tags Mean

• <: shows <.
• >: shows >.
• &: shows &.
• ©: shows the copyright symbol.

Example 1

Save each example as index.html and open it in your browser. Each code block is a complete page.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <title>HTML Entities and Symbols</title>
 
</head>
<body>
<p>Use &lt;p&gt; to write a paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>

What you see: The page shows: Use <p> to write a paragraph.

Example 2: Another Use

Use character references in ordinary text too.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <title>HTML Entities and Symbols</title>
 
</head>
<body>
<p>Tea &amp; snacks</p>
<p>&copy; My Learning Club</p>
</body>
</html>

Simple Tip

You can type ordinary Unicode symbols such as ₹ directly in a UTF-8 file.

Try It Yourself

Write a sentence that displays the text <h1>.